8/28/03 – Long Beach State Women’s Volleyball Head Coach Brian Gimmillaro with some of the National Championship awards the volleyball team has earned over the years. Brian is entering his 19th season at the school and recently received USA Volleyball’s "All-Time Coach" Award for 2003..Photo by Steven Georges/Press-Telegram

There he is on a recent early afternoon in the middle of the Walter Pyramid, holding a microphone, giving instructions to a group of aspiring young women’s volleyball players, preaching the fundamentals and disciplines that have been such a hallowed part of his Long Beach State program for a quarter of a century.

He intersperses his clinical monologue with light-hearted asides, but he commands rapt attention from the youngsters as he has for years from those who have made these mid-summer pilgrimages to Long Beach from around the country to listen and learn from a master of the trade.

“You have to square those shoulders,” Brian Gimmillaro keeps saying, as he has one of his team’s top players, Ashley Lee, give a demonstration of what he’s preaching.

Gimmillaro, casually dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, is presiding over his volleyball camp, which is the most popular and heavily attended on the college scene.

“We’re a little down because of the economic climate, but we still have more than 500 girls attending,” says Gimmillaro, with a touch of pride.

Later, during a break, Gimmillaro is seated in his Pyramid office that is bedecked with plaques and signed volleyballs and various citations reflecting his Hall of Fame career with the 49ers in which he has had a 656-154 record, won three NCAA and 10 Big West titles, made eight Final Four appearances, and coached four women, Tara Cross-Battle, Danielle Scott, Antoinette White and Misty May, who were AVCA National Players of the Years – Scott and May winning the award twice.

He is set to start his 25th season as the field commander of the 49ers when preseason practice starts in a couple of weeks, and, as always, he’s cautiously optimistic.

“We’ll have a good team,” he says, and that’s not exactly surprising since 20 of Gimmillaro’s 49er teams have wound up playing in the NCAA tournament.

Certainly, Brian Gimmillaro will have a good team, and it well might have been a great one – still might be – had a promising 6-foot-2 middle blocker, Ya Cheng Way, decided not to return from her native Beijing, China, because of personal reasons.

It is, of course, Gimmillaro’s passionate obsession to win another national championship, which his team hasn’t done since Misty May was a senior in 1998, a drought of epic proportion for someone like Gimmillaro who won his three NCAA titles during a nine-year period.

“Before I leave, I’m going to win another one,” he promises.

“It’ll happen. I just know it. You just have to keep working. Sure, you need breaks. You can’t have serious injuries. You have to keep the team together. But we can do it. And we will do it.”

Suddenly, one of Gimmillaro’s former players, Erika Chidester, makes an appearance.

“Remember, you have a 3 o’clock meeting,” she reminds.

Gimmillaro nods.

Chidester is one of the two new assistants – Matt Ulmer is the other – on Gimmillaro’s staff, as his long-time one, Debbie Green, retired and another one, Melissa Ohta, moved to Phoenix to be with her future husband.

“Obviously, I’m going to miss Debbie, who was with me for 23 years, as well as Melissa,” Gimmillaro says. “But I think the new people we have are going to do terrific jobs. They’re both 25 and excited about the opportunity.”

Gimmillaro also still does a terrific job, although he has found it more difficult during the postseason in recent years having to compete against schools with major football programs than he did earlier in his career when those schools didn’t make women’s volleyball such a high priority. Actually, he thinks he’s a better coach now than he’s ever been.

“I see more now … know more about the kids,” he says. “As you grow older, you know what you want to do, and have a greater sense of confidence in doing it.”

As always, Gimmillaro has the usual array of formidable players.

The best one is the returning All-American, 6-foot-4 Naomi Washington, who’s been shifted to the outside after being a middle blocker last season.

Ashley Lee, who was an outside hitter in 2008 before being sidelined by a knee injury, also has switched positions, as she succeeds Debbie Green’s daughter, Nicole Vargas, as the team’s setter.

“Ashley is a natural setter, and I look for her to do very well at it,” he says.

He is not a person who lives in the past, and when you press him on what has been the defining highlight of his lengthy Long Beach incumbency, he shakes his head slowly and grimaces.

“I’m not a guy who looks back,” he says. “I always feel that the team I’m coaching at the moment is my favorite one. That’s the way I look at it. But I guess if there’s one achievement I’m most proud of it is our first NCAA championship in 1989 because we did it with five African-American starters when no other previous championship team had ever had more than one.

“Women of color in those days were under-represented, and I’d like to think that opened up some future opportunities in the sport for them.”

Brian Gimmillaro has now reached 60, but has no immediate plans for retirement.

“I still enjoy coaching too much,” he says. “I do have some other interests I eventually want to pursue. Some of a personal nature and some of a business nature. But right now, my main focus still is on coaching.”

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